Google has the answer
or does it?
Yesterday I asked the question ‘how many people passed through your local airport in the last 24 hours?’. A little random, yes. Related to photography, sort of. Opening up lines of enquiry, absolutely.
In early 2004, I was ready for a new challenge. Through a friend I heard about a job at Innocent Drinks in West London. I loved their smoothies, I loved their branding, their ethos, their humour, their courage, and how they began. It was an events role, a perfect fit for my then career path and it was cycling distance from my flat in London which is always a win.
With much excitement I updated my CV and wrote what I hoped would be a convincing cover letter. It was and I got an interview.
I wasn’t nervous, well I say that, my memory has definitely not focused on that part of it. I remember arriving at their Hammersmith industrial unit, walking though the door with their recognisable little face beaming at me, we walked down a small corridor which opened up to a space which today would feel absolutely familiar AND yet, twenty years ago, not so much. Offices were not cool back then and it had not been long since I’d worked on Fleet Street so let’s just say I was a kid in a candy store.
They had plants, a lot of plants. It was open plan, with New York loft height ceilings enabling ideas and thoughts to breathe. There was music, colour, life, there was an artificial grass, bean bag filled area for meetings and of course a fridge full of smoothies.
I was shown into an equally cool meeting room with three ‘let’s grab a pint’ dressed staff members. The interview started as many do, I was asked to introduce myself, plied with questions relating to my CV. This was closely followed banter. We were laughing and cringing about the rollercoaster of event-organizing. After about twenty minutes the most senior member of staff, an American with impressive resume himself asked the question:
‘How many people do you think have passed through Heathrow Airport in the last 24hours?’
It took me a second before my focus regained after a flood of fear washed through my mind. You see, I’m not a facts person, or a numbers person for that matter. I am a creative thinker, a people person, a visual perceiver and a verbal processor. But that is JUST what they wanted to find out.
As my early secondary school maths teacher had encouraged me, he said, ‘just start showing and sharing how you would work it out’.
SHOW YOUR WORKINGS
At this point I had worked in events for six years. I had experience with logistics, people movement, time schedules, multi-layered service providers and of course the participants or in this case the travellers.
I started working how many planes could take off and land in a period of time and the average number of people on a flight.
I thought about flight staff, ground workers, freight carriers, retail workers and visitors.
I considered shift changes and crossovers….
The list was long and complex, did I get to an answer?
Absolutely not.
Thank goodness they stopped me after minutes of logistical consideration and promptly gave me the job.
Fast forward twenty years and here we are. Google at our finger tips, immediate resources of data and the workings of others. And yet, I would be surprised if these figures for your local airport would be available.
And let’s be honest, not everything is.
Which is something, I believe, to be grateful for.
Here we are in a time of racing to the finish line. To the end result, via short cuts, formula and case models. We are aiming for the bigger this, fancier that, next best thing and I believe we are poorer for it.
Let’s circle back to artists and photographers for a moment. After all I imagine 99% of those of you reading or listening to this post are.
In the last decade or so since the internet has really started influencing our flow the pressure for the next wow image or artwork is on. There’s a loss of value in ‘our workings’ because these can be rough, messy and to our viewers they are often mentally inaccessible and confusing. Dare I say it, when shared, they can often affect our follower and likes numbers. Eugh.
AND yet, we don’t get to the end results without them. We simply can not create the wonder without the wondering. You can’t run a marathon without training, you can’t make the perfect cake without experimenting with different timings and quantities and we would not be walking on the moon without dozens of failed space missions.
My 73 year old Dad reminded me recently ‘the journey is our reward’.
THE ARTIST’S SKETCHBOOK
We are in interesting times. Google, Ai editing, ChatGPT, hero shot focused social media platforms and more. We are racing to the finish line and we are teaching our children to do it too.
The above pictures are from when I was at art college in my late teens. I was studying sculpture at the time. We were largely left to our own devices, given a studio space and tutors to speak to but the lessons were in self-initiated discovery. The seeking, the observing, the sketches and the journaling.
BASICALLY THE WORKINGS.
And how powerful.
I believe artist sketchbooks are one of the most tangible ways we can not only understand more about ourselves but also about our fellow human beings and how their minds work. How dots are connected, tangents explored and the physical world experienced.
DAILY VISUAL JOURNALING
I recently started another 365. It’s a circle back to my personal work. I’ve been immersed in client work for the past year, rebuilding my business it’s been needed and longed for. I adore working with people, being behind my camera and delivering stunning imagery; client work enables me to do all those things and support my family at the same time.
However, to get to the end product, the results which bring the most value to clients, the workings need to continue. A personal trainer has to continue to work out and a chef will always be developing another dish.
Some come out in hives with the mention of a 365 - just to explain a 365 is the journey of shooting a photo a day.
But but and there is a BUT… as photographers many of us ARE shooting a photo a day regardless. We are most certainly doing it in our minds even if it doesn’t channel through a camera onto a digital frame or roll of film.
It’s the way we see.
It’s why I love to call it ‘daily visual journaling (DVJ)’ instead.
We are doing the workings, every single day.
We are opening our eyes, noticing light, connecting colours in our world, experiencing connection and feeling life on multiple levels.
And we’re considering the ins and outs, those who are travelling through our world, the service chores we need to do, the catering, the passengers….
This is not a post to nudge, lure or guilt you into anything and definitely not a 365, unless of course you feel inspired to do so.
It IS a post to show my workings. Whether it’s the journey of my twenty something self going through a job interview process and what impact it has on me still today, my teen artist exploring the internal beauty and external grit of a seashell or the day to day observations of beauty, light, colour and life echoing back at me as I travel through the world in the southern island of New Zealand.
A LOVE AFFAIR WITH LIGHT
A love affair is not an end point, it is a journey of discovery, connection and parts. It is in the workings. It IS the workings.
I started this Substack when I saw a finish line - a financial resolution to my current life situation and yet I forgot for a moment in my stress of exactly what it is to write a diary, do your daily visual journaling, to allow the process in the working, and that is what I believe this space is and exactly how I am circling back.
Just as with my 365, as with the answer to that airport question, I am not here for the event, for the daily masterpiece. I am here to share the workings, the process, the explorations and wonderings of not only my but my fellow artists.
Through articles, waves of blue. conversations and so much more. I am delighted you are here, please subscribe, it’s going to be wonderful.
Let me finish with something I wrote in my book back in 2019,
And so it brings me to the humble spider whose consistency of creation is unending until the end.
The work, the necessity, the beauty, the transience and the commitment.
She keeps doing the work, creating the beauty, allowing the elements to bend and shape her vision, a gust of wind or passing creature to brush it aside to nothing and yet she begins again.
She always begins again.
Always begin again.
Happy journalling in light and life.
Chat soon,
CW x
I see photographs all the time. I wish my camera was connected via wifi or Bluetooth to my eye balls 😅 and I could just blink to capture images !!